Political Corruption in Postbellum America

In the years following the Civil War, American politics were disjointed, corrupt, and, at the federal level, largely ineffective in terms of addressing the challenges that Americans faced. Local and regional politics, and the bosses who ran the political machines, dominated through systematic graft and bribery. Americans around the country recognized that solutions to the mounting problems they faced would not come from Washington, DC, but from their local political leaders. Thus, the cycle of federal ineffectiveness and machine politics continued through the remainder of the century relatively unabated.           Meanwhile, in the Compromise of 1877, an electoral commission declared Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the contested presidential election in exchange for the withdrawal of federal troops from South Carolina, Louisiana, and Florida. As a result, Southern Democrats were able to reestablish control over their home governments, which would have a tremendous impact on the direction of southern politics and society in the decades to come.            All images referenced in this podcast can be found at https://openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/20-1-political-corruption-in-postbellum-america            Welcome to A Journey into Human History.    This podcast will attempt to tell the whole human story.       The content contained in this podcast was produced by OpenStax and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.     Access for free at https://openstax.org/details/books/us-history           Podcast produced by Miranda Casturo as a Creative Common Sense production. No part of this podcast is made with generative AI Voice narration provided by computerized text-to-speech through voicemaker.in  For those who prefer ad free listening other options of support are available. https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/a-journey-into-human-history--5860966/support